Safe shutdown for Allo RPi systems

[odonnell]

I have the USBridge Signature with eMMC memory, but I expect that most or all other RPi and even Sparky systems have similar behavior.

 

It is not clear how best to shut down and power off safely and cleanly. I tried the Power Off button on the Allo Web GUI. The system became inaccessible, and the Web page stuck in an updating mode with a circulating icon. The shutdown appeared to be successful. The green power LED on the USBridge Sig kept glowing, but after a minute when the ACT LED hadn't flashed for 10 seconds, I unplugged. This seemed to do no harm.

 

I also shut down on a remote login through the Ethernet connection, using "sudo shutdown -h now." I had the same result as with the Web GUI.

 

It would be very useful to know a number of seconds of idleness for the ACT LED that indicates safety. Even better would be some positive indication of safe shut down, such as the green power LED going off, or a positive message on the Web GUI. Or there might be other approaches that I haven't thought of.

 

I am also concerned with the potential consequence of an accidental power cut. I experimented in the past with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and corrupted one of my micro SD memory chips. The corruption appeared to result from an uncontrolled accidental disconnection. I chose the eMMC partly to see whether it would be more robust, but I have no information to indicate whether it is.

 

[nbpf]

On 10/10/2019 at 8:44 PM, odonnell said:

I have the USBridge Signature with eMMC memory, but I expect that most or all other RPi and even Sparky systems have similar behavior.

 

It is not clear how best to shut down and power off safely and cleanly. I tried the Power Off button on the Allo Web GUI. The system became inaccessible, and the Web page stuck in an updating mode with a circulating icon. The shutdown appeared to be successful. The green power LED on the USBridge Sig kept glowing, but after a minute when the ACT LED hadn't flashed for 10 seconds, I unplugged. This seemed to do no harm.

 

I also shut down on a remote login through the Ethernet connection, using "sudo shutdown -h now." I had the same result as with the Web GUI.

 

It would be very useful to know a number of seconds of idleness for the ACT LED that indicates safety. Even better would be some positive indication of safe shut down, such as the green power LED going off, or a positive message on the Web GUI. Or there might be other approaches that I haven't thought of.

 

I am also concerned with the potential consequence of an accidental power cut. I experimented in the past with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and corrupted one of my micro SD memory chips. The corruption appeared to result from an uncontrolled accidental disconnection. I chose the eMMC partly to see whether it would be more robust, but I have no information to indicate whether it is.

 

I always shutdown my RPis with 'sudo poweroff' after remote ssh login. That said, I have had 2 RPi devices running 24/7 for a couple of years and they survived a number of accidental power cuts without any trouble. Still, I tend to keep an image of their micro SD card, just in case ... 

[odonnell]

I tried "sudo poweroff" and it appeared to behave exactly the same as "sudo shutdown -h now." After I saw no more activity from the ACT memory LED, I waited well over 30 seconds and the green Power LED continued to glow until I disconnected the power plug. It appears that the board has no way to do a software power off, but if it does have, it would be very nice to know. Also, it would be very nice to know a reliable way to be reasonably sure all memory activity is finished.

On 10/14/2019 at 1:09 PM, nbpf said:

I always shutdown my RPis with 'sudo poweroff' after remote ssh login.

 

[suzywong]

Moode has a “Shutdown button” on its menu.

 

Works for me.

[nbpf]

On 10/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, odonnell said:

I tried "sudo poweroff" and it appeared to behave exactly the same as "sudo shutdown -h now." After I saw no more activity from the ACT memory LED, I waited well over 30 seconds and the green Power LED continued to glow until I disconnected the power plug. It appears that the board has no way to do a software power off, but if it does have, it would be very nice to know. Also, it would be very nice to know a reliable way to be reasonably sure all memory activity is finished.

 

I have always assumed that when the ACT memory LED stops showing activity upon "poweroff" (or "shutdown -h now") it is safe to disconnect the power. I might be wrong but over many years (and many RPis) I never had problems following this approach.